“Children should have enough freedom to be themselves – once they’ve learned the rules.” ~ Anna Quindlen.

I always knew I wanted to have kids, to have a large family. I had grown up as the youngest of five, then six (my informally adopted older sister came to live with us when she was seventeen), and always felt cheated of having any younger siblings to play with.  Fortunately, shortly after we moved to Jamaica from the UK, I made friends.  One of my friends lived down the hill and her mother had just had a baby! And over the years she had two more! So I had my fill of younger siblings! 

When I started to have children, it was at a time when economically I could not afford to be a stay-at-home Mom.  My (Jamaican) husband’s jobs did not pay much more than minimum wage, and as a nurse I had the opportunity to work shifts and weekends, which allowed a working mother the flexibility needed to burn the candle at all ends! I well remember some nightmare mornings, coming home after working the night shift to two young children who needed my care until their father came home (I think he was at school at the time) at around 1:00 pm.  Those mornings were rough! I would plant myself on the couch, nursing one baby, trying to amuse the other, and trying not to fall asleep until he got home.

At some point in our marriage it made more sense for him to be the stay-at-home Dad, which meant I could go to work with a clear conscience.  And when I worked nights, he would try to keep the kids quiet (when they were not in school).  And so my kids were raised in good old-fashioned Caribbean-style.  This sometimes meant beat first, ask questions later.  But my children grew up with discipline, good manners, you could say they had ‘broughtupsy’! That’s a word I no longer have to explain, since it was added to the Oxford English dictionary in 2025!

That discipline could be heavy handed.  I well remember going with the family to watch our older kids at our local Optimist club football matches.  My daughter cheered, and my older son played football.  The two younger boys were not yet old enough to play, but they were having a great time tumbling up and down over the bleachers, giving me three heart attacks and a stroke.  At some point my husband yelled at them in his usual stern tone of voice to stop playing and sit down.  A little girl watching and listening remonstrated to him: “Why you have to be so mean to your children?”  I laughed, but I realized that his serious tone could take on a very menacing note. 

Fairly recently, I heard one of my sons giving a perfect imitation of a favorite threat of his father’s.  By the way, there is nothing more difficult to go through (at least for me) than your children’s reminiscences about their childhood.  If ever a thing was designed to activate a working mother’s guilt, this is it! Of course, there is nothing you can do to go back and undo the past.  And they turned out pretty good, considering.  Considering that a lot of the time that I thought my children were being cared for at home by their father, he was out and about, leaving his ten-year-old daughter in charge of three rambunctious younger brothers!

But back to the imitation.  I had to verify with my son what the saying was, since I didn’t hear it firsthand very often: “Since you think it’s a game, since you think it’s a joke, watch me and unu (insert Jamaican bad word) in here”.  This of course would be said to the lively children who were being normal, not sitting and behaving!  This would no doubt be followed with either some corporal punishment, or perhaps even worse, a long lecture about his own childhood; the state of the descendants of Africans in the world today; a litany of their prior sins; or any other topic that he deemed to be important.  The boys remember many hours of being made to sit in one place as he lectured to his captive audience.

But part of that phrase has been resonating with me, as it pertains to our current leadership – ‘Watch me’.  It seems a week cannot go by without some other ‘fresh hell’, some additional example of egregious behavior; cruel policies; blatant corruption.  It is as if the current occupant of the People’s House has decided, what, you think I can’t tear down a wing? Just watch me.  Erect a hideous monstrosity behind the White House? Just watch me.  Separate families, subject undocumented, non-criminals to cruel and inhumane treatment in internment camps? Watch me.  Dismantle programs meant to try to make the workplace, our colleges, and our systems more equitable? Just watch me.  Post the most insane and incoherent tweets in social media? Watch me.  Threaten to invade and take over other countries? Watch me.  Break all the norms of decent behavior, civil behavior, ethical behavior, appropriate behavior as befits the head of state? Just watch me.

It is exhausting doing all this watching, waiting for the checks and balances built into this democracy to kick in.  Of course, the same democracy has resulted in majorities in both houses of the Legislative branch of the government, majorities which are predisposed to sitting and watching, rather than legislating.  Fortunately, in many instances, it is the Judicial branch (not including the SCOTUS) which has been watching and correcting.  But in the Judicial branch it tends to be slower, more measured responses, but which nonetheless appear to be holding sway. 

I remember, when my kids were teenagers, I was struggling with that phase of parenting, which is so much more nuanced and strategic.  One of my most effective ways of bringing about a desired outcome with my kids was to do the famous count, as in ‘Don’t let me count to three…one…’ and that, combined with a look could achieve a miraculous change in behavior! However, on one occasion as I started to count, my fifteen-year-old son (at the time) who loomed over me, calmly said ‘Ma, I’m fifteen, that doesn’t work any more!’ and I realized I needed a new strategy!  I borrowed a book from the library on the subject of teenagers, and the author’s advice was that the most important job for any parent of teenagers, is to teach them that there are consequences for their behavior.  Each time that a parent swoops in and saves a child from such consequences, the child misses the lesson.  So if they don’t want to tidy their bedroom, fine, leave it a mess, but keep the door closed so no one visiting can see it. If they don’t want to wash their own clothes, let them run out of clean clothes! 

It seems to me that the piece that is missing in our current situation is that those who are enacting policies, who are abusing public trust, who are sending our troops into harm’s way, are doing so without accountability.  Fortunately, that is where the imperfect democracy in which we live give us, ‘We the People’ the power to demand accountability, and to use the power of the vote to fire those who are not fulfilling their civic responsibilities, their allegiance to the Constitution.  We have the vote, we have a voice to send messages to Congress, and we have first amendment rights to verbalize our dissent, and to peacefully protest.  Furthermore, we have a duty to future generations to do so.

One this Friday morning, as I muse on methods of raising children and holding those in power accountable, I give thanks that I do live in a democracy.  I am grateful that my children turned out to be decent, caring, compassionate human-beings despite (or because of?) their heavy-handed father.  And I hope that the people of these United States will soon be saying, No, watch US!

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.